Until Gia.
A hand landed on his shoulder, a gesture meant to comfort. “Why don’t you get some rest, Cap’n?”
Zan shrugged it off. “Not tired.”
Instead of slinking away, Duffy frowned at him. “I got your message loud and clear, you know. I’m not gonna attack you.”
“What message?”
“Hands off. You’re with her now.” Duffy chucked his thumb at Gia’s sleeping form.
“I was.” Zan looked to where Gia was curled up, her hands tucked under her chin, dreaming. They hadn’t talked anymore about the dreams, his memories. She respected his privacy on that score.
“She’ll be good to you. Good for you. Kick your ass when you need it.” Duffy smirked, but the smile faded quickly. “I’m glad you found her, being as I’m heading out as soon as we land.”
“What? Duffy, what the hell, you don’t even know where we’ll end up. I think it would be better if we stick together.”
“Told myself I was staying for the ship, for the crew to keep ’em in line. Well, the ship is gone and the crew isn’t a crew without a ship. I stayed too long at this party already. Hoping for something that was never gonna happen.”
Poleaxed, Zan sat there, absorbing this latest hit. Duffy was leaving. “Just like that? I don’t want to fuck you, so you’re heading out. Christ, Duffy, what did you expect? I’m not gay, never claimed to be. In my culture it’s considered immoral for a man to forsake women outright. The ranking is about power and dominance, not love. You know that.”
“Yeah, I do. Doesn’t mean I have to live with it though. I’m tired of being around people who make me feel like there’s something wrong with me for not being omnisexual. Screwing anything with a pulse just because I’m bigger or a better fighter. And I need to be away from you so I can figure out who I am again.”
Zan opened his mouth to respond but something hit the pod, causing them to shake. Both men swiveled to the controls, scanning for the source of the hit.
“There.” Duffy pointed at the grid. “In orbit around that small moon.”
Zan squinted. “Are you sure those aren’t asteroids?”
The ship rocked again, throwing them both against the left bulkhead. “Pretty damn sure,” Duffy grunted.
Gia’d been flung out of bed but had managed to grab ahold of the bench until the pod righted itself. “What’s going on?
Zan and Duffy scrambled back to the navigation chairs. “We’ve got company.”
Gia’d been awake for some time listening to Zan and Duffy talk. She willed her space pirate to come clean, to confess to Duffy that he did care about him, admit that he’d been hiding his feelings. If he could do that, she knew they’d have a chance together and that Zan wanted to make up for his past actions and decided to have a future. She’d been so sure he’d been about to say something when the pod took the first blow.
Ignoring Zan’s command to buckle in would have been foolhardy, but sitting as a passenger with no control was not something she was accustomed to. Or very good at doing. “Do you recognize the ships?”
“They’re too far away for our sensors.” Zan’s hands flew over the pod’s controls. “Duffy, try to raise them on the comm. And tell the other pods to alter course and spread out. Better to be five sitting targets than one.”
“Messages sent. The other pods are changing course, heading to the far side of the moon.”
“What about the ships? Any news?”
Duffy shook his head. “No response.”
“What can I do?” Gia called out.
“Sit tight. We’ll either get out of this or we won’t.”
“Describe the ship’s formation to me. I might know their flight patterns even if you don’t.”
“Damn it all, Gia. I’ve been a space farer longer than you’ve been alive, I think I’d know.”
“Hard to take note of the surroundings when you have your head lodged completely up your ass,” Gia shot back.
Zan whirled to face her, but just then the comm crackled to life. “Alien pods, this is Commander Slone of Earth’s stinger squadron gamma. Alter your course and prepare to be towed to our base.”
“No fracking way.” Gia was up and out of her seat, leaning over Duffy to reach the comm. “Thad, it’s Gia.”
“Gia?” His voice rose at the end. “Holy hell, we thought you were dead!”
“Not quite.” She grinned at Zan, who wore a black scowl. “We had to abandon ship more than a week ago and are living in pretty tight quarters. You mind giving us a little assist?”
“Like you even need to ask. We can tow you to the station. Be there in a jiff.”
The comm clicked off and Gia bounced on her toes. She would have jumped for joy if it hadn’t meant bashing her skull against the ceiling. “You hear that?”
“Yes,” Zan muttered. “What kind of man says ‘in a jiff’?”
Gia thumped back down on her heels. “What’s your major malfunction? You’ve been climbing the walls for a week now. We caught a lucky break, running into some of my old colleagues. Don’t you want to get out of here?”
Instead of answering, Zan slammed back down the hallway to the restroom.
Gia sat in his vacated seat and waited for the stinger squadron to close in. One ship alone couldn’t spare the power to create a tractor beam strong enough to haul the pods, but half a dozen could merge their mainframes to combine their power. It was a tricky maneuver, one she’d seen Thad Slone pull off many times.
“How well do you know this man?” Duffy asked as they watched the stingers fall into starburst formation.
“Thad? Pretty well. We flew together for almost five years.”
Duffy seemed to take that in. “And were the two of you lovers?”
Gia raised an eyebrow. “Nosy much?”
He shrugged. “I figured you knew about me, I should know about you.”
He had a point. “No, Thad is happily married to his high school sweetheart. He was more of a father figure to me.” In a time when she desperately needed one.
Duffy looked from her to the closed bathroom door and back again. “Do us all a favor and don’t tell him that.”
“Why? He’s jealous, but he doesn’t need to be.”
“Oh, I think he does.” Duffy smiled. “I think the Cap’n needs something to fight for as much as he needs someone to fight with. Make him win you, Gia.”
“I’m not into head games. Zan and I have always been honest with each other.” And yet they’d experienced a major breakdown in communication.
“I’m not asking you to lie to him. Just don’t fill him in right away. He’ll do what he always does, assume the worst. He’ll set the hoops at impossible heights and then have to jump through them.”
Gia didn’t see too much harm in doing what Duffy suggested. She could always enlighten Zan later, when he wasn’t being a narcissistic ass. “Why do you want me to do this?”
Duffy’s eyes twinkled. “Because it’ll be a hell of a show.”
26
For the first time in days Zan could relax. Or, more accurately, he had the opportunity to take his ease on the moon side base deploy station for the stinger squadron. Though the moon had no natural atmosphere, a triple layer of energy domes had been constructed around the perimeter keeping the artificial atmosphere in and any threats out.
Yes, if he wanted he could kick up his feet, secure in the knowledge that his people were provided for, no longer at the mercy of the universe. He should be planning his next move, figuring out some way to catch Xander, or at the very least eating to regain the weight he’d lost on Hosta.
But his appetite was nonexistent. Possibly it had something to do with Gia’s laughter coming from where she sat next to Commander Thadius Slone, who hadn’t left her side since they touched down. Zan stabbed the roasted red meat on his plate viciously. What the hell could possibly be so funny?
“I think it’s already dead, Cap’n,” Duffy said from his side.
&nbs
p; “I thought you were leaving,” Zan snarled back.
“No place round here to go. It’s a small base and the only way on or off is by their transports.” Duffy nodded to the end of the table. “Why aren’t you sitting with your woman?”
“She’s not my woman.” Zan took a swig from the flavorless beverage called unsweetened tea he’d picked up on the lunch line.
“How’s that? You fought for her in the ranking and won.”
“She fought for herself, won her own freedom.” Never had such a thing happened on Hosta before. Gia had made her mark on his planet’s history. And on his heart.
“So maybe you ought to fight for her now,” Duffy prodded.
“You heard her reply to my declaration.”
Duffy shook his head, his expression pitying. “That weren’t no declaration, Cap’n. You was trying to win an argument. Women want to be sweet-talked.”
Zan snorted. “And you’re the expert on women all of a sudden? Were you two bonding over me, comparing notes on my sexual performances? Maybe later you can paint each other’s nails.”
Duffy’s expression hardened. “And you wonder why she won’t seek you out, you dumb shit. She’s not a glutton for punishment and abuse the way I am. And I think I’ve had my fill.” Picking up his tray, he stalked out of the room.
Zan stared after him, then turned back toward Gia. She touched Slone’s shoulder, then stood up, but instead of following after her good pal Duffy she moved toward him and sat down next to him.
“You like?” She nodded at his plate.
“Filet mignon, right?”
Her eyebrows rose in surprise. “I keep forgetting you spent time on Earth. Yes. Stinger pilots don’t usually eat so well, but it was Slone’s birthday last week and his family sent a care package of cryogenically frozen meat for the whole squad.”
Having been a pirate as long as Zan had, he could appreciate the expensive gift. Swallowing his distaste he said, “It’s kind of him to share it with my people. I reckon you had something to do with that.”
Gia held up her hands. “Nope. Slone is a generous man. Our history has nothing to do with it.”
Our history. Zan seethed in silence. He had no claim on her affections. A week ago he would have thought nothing of tossing her over his shoulder, hauling her back to her room, and stripping her naked. Then he’d proceed to convince her that Slone and his cryogenic meat had nothing on him.
But a week ago he’d been captain of his own vessel, filthy rich with the universe at his doorstep. He’d had a loyal first and a crew that he was able to provide for. Now what did he have to offer her but his heart?
And she’d already shot that down.
“What do you want, more than anything else in the world?” Zan asked Gia.
“To go home,” she answered immediately. “I know it’s a one in a million chance. Slone says there’s a holo criminal file being circulated. As long as Illustra’s board of directors are in power, Gen, her family, and I can never go back to Earth.”
Zan wanted to know more, to know everything that she’d been unable to confess to him while they were on Hosta. But the crowded dining hall was no place for personal confidences. Shoving his plate aside he reached for her hand. “Take a walk with me?”
Gia nodded but didn’t take his hand. “I guess.”
A small hydroponic garden had been set up alongside the kitchen. With the majority of personnel eating it was empty. Zan led her inside and leaned against a giant pool of tomatoes. “Better?”
Gia smiled. “Yeah. Hearing them talk about flying missions makes me miss my stinger.”
“I’m sorry you lost it.”
She laughed humorlessly. “It was my home, you know? The only thing in the whole universe I could count on. Being a stinger pilot assigned to a squadron like this one is like being part of a family. I never really had that before, and I miss it like crazy.”
“That’s what my crew has been to me. Although the dynamic is a little different, since I had to kick their lazy asses half the time.”
Gia grinned, but it evaporated quickly. The moist air from the garden had her blond hair sticking to her face. She was beautiful, back to wearing a stinger-pilot-issued flight suit that clung to every curve. “What are you going to do now?”
Zan reached for her and smoothed the strands away. “I’m not sure. You ruined all my plans.”
Green eyes flashed. “If you expect me to apologize—”
Yanking her to him he cradled her head in his hands and brushed his lips over hers in a feather-light kiss. She swayed toward him, and he rested his forehead against hers. “Not at all. You did what you thought was right, just like you always do, and you probably saved my life. Besides, expecting an apology from you is like expecting water to flow uphill.”
“Right back atcha,” she whispered. Her hands gripped his vest, holding him to her as she stood on her toes for another kiss. Zan groaned when her tongue swept across his lips and he opened for her, wanting her to taste him deeper. His hands roved her slender back, exploring familiar territory he’d never tire of learning.
Her mouth molded to his and their tongues met in the middle, dancing and dueling, always vying for control. He breathed her in, pulling her tightly against him, needing more, all he knew she had to give. She might not be his forever, but for this one moment she belonged to him and no one else.
Suddenly, Gia shoved him backward, toppling him to the ground and throwing herself across him. Zan was about to suggest they go to her room when the distinctive buss of a pulse rifle discharge rent the air. Followed closely by another. Tomatoes exploded and landed into the pool, creating a muddy red mess.
Someone was shooting at them. Zan rolled her against the transparent tank and blocked her body with his. As cover went, it was lousy at best, but still better than nothing. Of all the rotten timing . . .
“We need to get out of here!” Gia shouted into Zan’s ear as another round of energy weapon discharge took out more of the produce. “Can you see how many snipers?”
Zan lifted his head a few inches. “Just the one, I think. You’re not armed?”
Gia shook her head. “Nonmilitary personnel aren’t allowed weapons on base.”
If anything Zan’s expression turned darker. “Which means that’s a military-trained sniper gunning for us.”
Adrenaline surged in her system. After all the shit they’d been through, she’d be damned if they’d be taken out like a couple of sitting ducks. “Let’s make a run for it.”
Zan had been eyeballing the path leading back to the commissary. “It’s too exposed.”
Gia opened her mouth to argue, but more fire erupted. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a flash of salt-and-pepper hair. “It’s Thad!” She squirmed underneath Zan, trying to get a better look at the action.
“Stay the fuck down until he takes out the target.” Zan snarled, covering her like a living blanket of man flesh.
Gia did, hoping against hope that Thad had backup, that even now a team had been dispatched to corner the sniper.
The fight seemed to stretch out for an eon, but finally Thad called out, “It’s all clear.”
Zan rolled off, and Gia scrambled to her feet. “Did you catch him?”
Thad had shouldered his rifle and shook his head. “No, the rifle was set for auto burst after we arrived. I wondered why he wasn’t hitting anyone. Smart bastard got away.”
She squeezed him tight. “Two rescues in one day. Not bad for an old geezer.”
Thad laughed. “Keep it up, whippersnapper, and I won’t trouble myself to snag your fat outta the fire next time.”
“Any clue who he was?” Zan asked.
“Unfortunately, yes. I intercepted a communiqué to the assassin from Illustra. They hired him to take both of you out.”
Gia shook her head. “Unbelievable. It’s not enough I can never go home again, that they have wanted holos bouncing through every star system, and now they dispatched an assassin to tak
e me out.”
Thad’s face was grim. “Both of you. It has something to do with someone named Xander. Any thoughts as to why he wants you dead?”
Zan stilled beside her. Gia reached for his hand and clasped it in her own. No, this couldn’t be happening. Their enemies had united against them, joined forces to take them out.
“I need to meet with my people.”
Thad nodded. “Go ahead and use conference room one. Let me know if I can do anything to help.”
Zan nodded and pulled Gia behind him. “We don’t have much time. If they know where we are, we’re going to have to stay on the move. We’re just lucky they didn’t catch up with us when we were stewing in those pods.”
“I guess Xander figured out how to instruct the ship to open wormholes.”
Zan didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
Gia wanted to corner him, to make him tell her what he was planning, but time wasn’t on their side.
Most of the space pirates were still in the mess hall. Zan told them about the meeting and then turned to her. “Would you go get Duffy and catch him up?”
“Zan—” she started, but he held up a hand.
“I’ll meet you in the conference room.”
Gia rolled her eyes at him but hurried off to find Duffy. They had to get their priorities in order; the imminent showdown with him and his first would have to wait.
Duffy and the rest of the space pirates were being housed in bunk rooms designated for lower lever recruits. Since the station was a new facility it hadn’t reached half its maximum capacity, but Gia guessed Slone wanted to keep the refugees together.
She depressed the buzzer, then waited for Duffy to answer. The door slid open and Duffy cast her a wan smile. “What’s up?”
Gia didn’t mince words. “There’s a meeting in the conference room. Zan wants us all there.”
Duffy shook his head. “I ain’t a member of his crew no more.”
“Please, Duffy, it’s important. There’s an assassin after us, and Xander is in league with Illustra. We need all the friends we can get on our side right now.”
No Mercy Page 21
